A persistent legend claims that one mile in five of the Interstate highway system must be straight so that military planes can land on it in wartime. The Federal Highway Administration says otherwise: no law or design standard has ever required it, and bridges, interchanges and signs would make such landings hazardous. Other countries, such as Sweden, Finland and Switzerland, have however built genuine road sections that can serve as runways.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.